©2023 Sarah Becker “From 1942 through the end of the Second World War, a top secret military intelligence service operated clandestinely on the shores of our own Potomac,” former U.S. Representative Jim Moran [D-VA8] told his Congressional colleagues in 2007. “Known only by its mailing address, P.O. Box 1142, the men and women at this [Fairfax County, Virginia] post provided the military intelligence that helped bring an end to World War II.” Fort Hunt Park became the property of the National Park Service in 1933. P.O. Box 1142, one of two domestic military intelligence centers, was created not long after the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The wartime facility included multiple structures: a secret set of buildings of the type found only in mystery novels. “Throughout the war and its aftermath, the post processed and interrogated nearly 4,000 of the most important German prisoners of war,” Moran explained. “The men who performed the interrogations were drawn from across the country. The shared attribute is that they all spoke fluent German.” Among the German prisoners of war interrogated at the Fort: Major General Reinhard Gehlen, head of the Foreign Armies East section of the Abwehr, the intelligence service of the German general staff. Also Horst Degan, the mine-laying ship-sinking Nazi U-boat commander caught in 1942 off the North Carolina coast. Degan, it is said “talked quite freely with his interrogators.” “Many interrogators were Jewish,” Moran continued, “to ensure their loyalty to America’s mission. These interrogations resulted in the discovery of most of Germany’s secret weapons including the atomic bomb, the jet engine, and the [liquid fueled Vengeance-2] V-2 rocket—all technologies that became essential informational components in waging the Cold War [1947-1991].” “In advancing the Nation’s interests and uncovering vital secrets, the interrogators at P.O. Box 1142 never resorted…
By Sarah Becker ©2023 August 26 is Women’s Equality Day. To what extent is today’s woman equal to today’s man? The woman’s Equal Rights Amendment—first introduced by Quaker Alice Paul 100 years ago—remains unresolved; passed by the 117th U.S. House of Representatives in 2021, then tabled in the Senate. Paul’s proposed Equal Rights Amendment: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.” “Two great early 19th century social movements sought to end slavery and secure equal rights for women,” The National Park Service explained. “The anti-slavery movement grew from peaceful origins after the American Revolution to a Civil War, a War Between the States that effectively ended slavery while severely damaging the women’s rights movement.” In the colonial era when only single, unmarried women—Feme Soles—owned land, lawyer Margaret Brent [1601-1671] acquired land patents first in St. Mary’s City, Maryland, and, later, in Virginia [1651-1671]. “The acquiring of patents of land, (usually but not always, resulting from the importing of new settlers) was a fine way to expand one’s estate,” William Francis Smith wrote in 1996. “It was this that caused her to receive a patent in 1654 for 700 acres (north of Hunting Creek to a line approximating Alexandria’s Queen Street).” “Brent was truly ahead of her time,” Smith continued. She was it seems, the first woman to request a vote in the Maryland Assembly: two votes in fact, one for herself as a Maryland landowner and the other as Lord Baltimore’s legal representative. Not until 1920 did America’s women add the vote “to their arsenal of political tools.” According to Harper’s Magazine lawyer Brent was “the prototype of what the nineteenth century calls the new woman.” British author Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was first…
By ©2023 Sarah Becker On February 9, 1775, the British Parliament “declared the colony of Massachusetts to be in rebellion.” The colony’s, colonial America’s Continental Army was created soon after the April 19th Battle of Lexington and Concord. The same month John Adams, the “Atlas of Independence,” nominated George Washington to serve as the Army’s Commander-in-Chief. Delegate John Adams, a member of the colonies First and Second Continental Congresses [1774-1781], voted in favor of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. A member of the drafting committee, he was one of 56 signatories. “Yesterday, the greatest question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among men,” Adams wrote wife Abigail on July 3, 1776. “A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, ‘that these [13] United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, and as such they have, and of right ought to have, full power to make war [and] conclude peace.’” “The Second Day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha in the History of America,” Adams continued. “I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations as a great anniversary Festival.” “I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration,” Adams concluded. “Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means.” Although President John Adams [MA-F, 1797-1801] was the first U.S. President to occupy the White House [November 1800], Thomas Jefferson [VA-DR, 1801-1809] was the first President to celebrate July 4th while living in the White House. The White House Festival included diplomats, civil and…
By ©2023 Sarah Becker Pet Appreciation Week, initiated by the American Veterinarian Association—an Association established in 1863—is celebrated June 4-10, 2023. It is said that George and Martha Washington were “avid dog and bird people.” Mary Thompson, published author and Mount Vernon Historian Emerita, loves dogs. She joins me for a Q&A. Q1: The American Heritage Dictionary defines pet as “an animal kept for amusement or companionship; an object of the affections, a favorite.” To what extent did the Washington family enjoy companion animals, pets of a particular type? A1. “The Washington family knew and related to animals in a number of different roles, including as pets. Like other people now and two hundred years ago, they used animals to supply labor on their farms: to pull plows, harrows, and other agricultural equipment. Also to power coaches, wagons, sleighs, and other means of land transportation. Dogs mostly served as guard animals.” Q2. You recently purchased a West Highland white Terrier puppy. Did the Washington family’s fondness for Westies influence your choice of household pet? A2.”The new puppy, whose name is Fingal, is our second Westie. Much as I wish we could prove that Washington had Westies that is just a fond wish. Many dog breeds with which we are familiar today were developed in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although Westies are primarily house pets at present, they were developed as hunters who helped keep barns and stables free of rats and mice: barnyards free of unwanted vermin, i.e. rabbits, foxes, badgers, weasels, otters, water rats, woodchucks, and even small game and birds. There is some evidence that Westies have been a feature of Scottish life since at least the time of King James VI [1566-1625]. Terriers, as a group, came in a range of sizes as did their prey.”…
by ©2023 Sarah Becker From the Republic’s founding there has been a connection between politics and the courts. Perhaps no more dramatically than the case of Marbury v. Madison [1803]. The U.S. Supreme Court decision was landmark: it established the Constitutional doctrine of judicial review. The case—brought by the district of Columbia’s William Marbury and Alexandria complainants Robert Townsend Hooe [the Town of Alexandria’s first Mayor], Dennis Ramsay and William Harper—was an outgrowth of the contentious politics surrounding the Presidential election of 1800. In November 1800, President John Adams [F-MA] lost his re-election bid. Incumbent Vice President Thomas Jefferson [DR-VA] defeated him. Soon after Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party claimed Adams was packing the courts in an effort to protect the Federalist Party’s legacy. John Adams was well known for his 1776 Thoughts on Government. “For Adams the structure of government was a subject of passionate interest that raised fundamental questions about the realities of human nature, political power, and the good society,” David McCullough explained. “It was a concern that for years had propelled much of his reading and exchange of ideas.” Adams want: a government that included an executive, a bicameral legislature, and an independent judiciary. President Adams appointed attorney and former French Envoy John Marshall Secretary of State on June 6, 1800. Months later, when U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth [1796-1801] resigned, Adams offered the Chief Justice’s job to Marshall. Chief Justice Marshall took his oath of office on February 4, 1801, while simultaneously serving as ad interim Secretary of State. Marshall, a moderate Federalist, was born in Germantown, Virginia, in 1755. The oldest of 15 children he was schooled using mostly the Dictionary. His was a stellar resume. Marshall joined the Virginia BAR in 1780; was a member of the House of Burgesses [1782-1788] and an…
by ©2023 Sarah Becker The American Library Association [ALA] celebrates National Library Week April 23-29. Did you know Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]—author of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Minister to France, first Secretary of State, third President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia—was fascinated with books? The ALA’s 2023 theme: There’s more to the Story. “Books are boring,” the green frog said. “Dude, books are fascinating,” the orange frog replied. The frogs were discussing Newbery medalist Kwame Alexander’s Surf’s Up. Libraries offer not only children’s and big print books, audio and e-books but also story times and book clubs, programs and lectures. “A little attention to the nature of the human mind evinces that the entertainments of fiction are useful,” Jefferson wrote in 1771. “[E]very thing is useful which contributes to fix us in the principles and practice of virtue,” i.e. moral excellence. “More patrons check out fiction than nonfiction,” Brack Stovall Duncan Library Branch Manager agreed. “I cut my teeth on science fiction.” He now enjoys environmental fiction, books like Kim Stanley Robinson, Jennifer Fitzgerald, et.al.’s 2019 Pulitzer prize-winning The Overstory. Also The Ministry for the Future by Robert Powell [2020]. Alexandria’s Kate Waller Barrett Branch Library [KWBB] received a six-month 2020-2021 American Library Association Resilient Communities grant to educate patrons concerning global climate change: to “highlight issues of environmental justice, sustainability, and emergency preparedness.” The local takeaway, flooding. “Climate change is the one thing we’re all experiencing,” Megan Zimmerman KWBB adult services librarian conceded. “Twenty percent of Alexandria city is located on a floodplain and in recent years rainstorms have become more severe, causing homes and businesses to flood.” Examples include the Old Town Alexandria waterfront and the West Street Braddock Metro. “With the detonation of Trinity in the New Mexico desert in 1945,…
by ©2023 Sarah Becker March is not only Women’s History Month: March 21 is also World Poetry Day. According to Fireside poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is “a universal poet—of women and young people.” Whitman’s poetry is “situated between” Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Transcendentalism and Realism. “Where in Washington is the house in which Walt Whitman—printer’s devil, compositor, carpenter, country school teacher, editorial writer, publisher, tramp, hospital orderly, Federal employee, and immortal poet—resided?” The Washington Post asked. “In 1863 he disclosed he was paying $7 a month for a ‘bright little third-story front room’ at 1407 L Street NW.” Whitman, born a Quaker worked as a Civil War hospital volunteer in both Washington and Alexandria. Cherry syrup, horehound candy, and money were among his favorite bedside offerings. “You just maturing youth! You male or female!” Walt Whitman wrote in Chants Democratic 6. “Remember the organic compact of These States,/ Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the rights, life, liberty, equality of man,/ Remember what was promulged by the founders, ratified by The States, signed in black and white by the Commissioners,… Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions, are to become the hundred, or two hundred millions, of equal freemen and freewomen, amicably joined….” Hening’s Collection of the Laws of Virginia refers to femes covert, “orphans, femes covert (married women) and persons of unsound mind,” beginning in 1657-1658. In 1789, President George Washington’s inaugural year First Lady Martha Custis Washington was a feme covert; the property of her husband, without rights unable to vote or hold elective office. “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law,” British jurist Sir William Blackstone said in 1765, “that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least…
by © 2023 Sarah Becker “My opinion with respect to emigration is, that except of useful mechanics—and some particular descriptions of men—or professions—there is no need of extra encouragement,” President George Washington wrote in 1794. In 2020 25.6% of Alexandria’s population was foreign born. Washington advised against the “settling of emigrants in a body” arguing that “by so doing they retain the language, habits & principles (good or bad) which they bring with them.” He preferred that emigrants intermix; “get assimilated to our customs, manners and laws: in a word, soon become one people.” As of 1795, U.S. citizenship required a five year residency. In 2015 Wallet Hub ranked Virginia 8th overall for Hispanic assimilation. Virginia’s 2020 Hispanic population: 10.2%. Alexandria’s Hispanic population 16.5% of the city’s total. “[T]he United States has never adopted any measure to encourage or invite emigrants,” Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wrote in 1819. “It has never held out any incitements to induce the subjects of any other sovereign to abandon their own country.” “They come to a life of independence, to a life of labor—and, if they cannot accommodate themselves to the character, moral, political, and physical of this country, with all its compensating balances of good and evil, they may always…return to the land of their nativity,” Adams continued. “To one thing they must make up their minds,” Adams concluded. “They must cast off the European skin, never to resume it. They must look forward to their posterity [to future generations] rather than backward to their ancestors.” [Italics added] The power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization” rests with Congress [U.S. Constitution: Art. 1, Sec. 8]. Emigrate describes the move relative to the point of departure. Immigrate describes the move relative to the destination. “They came here—the exile and the stranger;…
By ©2022 Sarah Becker British historian Andrew William Kinglake, best known for his 1874 book The Invasion of The Crimea, published his first tome Eothen, or Traces of Travel, Brought Home from the East in 1844. It is for reason of the latter that his poem Stick and Stones became forever famous. Kinglake’s rhyme: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me….” The rhyme has long been “used as a defense against name-calling and verbal bullying.” The Virginia Code [22.1-276.01(A)] defines bullying as “any aggressive and unwanted behavior that is intended to harm, intimidate, or humiliate the victim; involves a real or perceived power balance between the aggressor or aggressors and victim; and is repeated over time or causes severe emotional trauma.” Cyber bullying is included: ordinary teasing, horseplay, argument, or peer conflict is not. In 1844 former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and Tennessee Governor James K. Polk [D-TN] defeated statesman Henry Clay [Whig-KY] for President. America’s anti-slavery movement was gaining momentum, as was Polk’s plan to annex the Republic of Texas. Anti-slavery Whigs thought annexation troubling and Polk supporters responded by claiming Clay “spent his days at the gambling table and his nights in a brothel.” In 1862 Congress forbid slavery in federal territories and President Abraham Lincoln [R-IL] completed the first draft of his Emancipation Proclamation. The black community, free and enslaved became enthused and the African Methodist Episcopal [AME] Church—“born in protest against slavery”—rallied. The Church adapted an “old adage,” Kinglake’s Sticks and Stones and delivered. Said the AME’s Christian Reporter in March 1862, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.” The first black members of the U.S. Congress were elected in 1870. Two years later Southern Republicans, Negroes were “told to stand…
by ©2022 Sarah Becker ‘Tis the holidays, a season many celebrate with tasty treats. Foods made with spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. For the Friends Meeting, followers of the Quaker faith—a Protestant faith—SPICES is an acronym for religious Testimonies. According to Swarthmore College, of Quaker origin, Quakers use the word testimony “to describe ‘a witness to the Living Truth Within the human heart’—as it is acted out in everyday life.” The six Quaker Testimonies are: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship of the Earth. Integrity, adherence to truth and an ethical code is a given. Peace Testimony: “The Peace testimony is based on the same understanding of the nature of God and of human beings,” Swarthmore said. “How can one kill another child of God, a potential channel of Truth, no matter how misguided he or she may seem at the moment?” The testimony has led many Friends to oppose war; to seek a reconciling force between peoples and nations in conflict. “Your principles & conduct are well known to me,” President and retired Revolutionary War General George Washington wrote the Society of Quakers in 1789, “and it is doing the People called Quakers no more than Justice to say, that [except their declining to share with others the burthren of the common defense] there is no Denomination among us who are more exemplary and useful Citizens.” Alexandria educator Benjamin Hallowell [1799-1877] “never doubted the correctness of the Quaker peace testimony.” He remained a pacifist during the War of 1812. An Alexandria exception: Disowned Quaker, Confederate army Major and inventor of the modern knuckle coupler Eli Hamilton Janney [1831-1912]. Two of America’s 46 Presidents were Quakers, Herbert Hoover [R-CA, 1929-1933] and Richard Nixon [R-CA, 1969-1974]. “The son of a Quaker blacksmith, Herbert Clark Hoover brought to the Presidency…
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